Hugh Jackman discovers a poorly placed water jet in his hot tub.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

INT. A HOUSE - CANADA, 1845

YOUNG HUGH JACKMAN, who kind of resembles the kid from FREAKS AND GEEKS, is sick in bed.  His brother, YOUNG LIEV SCHREIBER, glowers over him while his father, PETER O'BRIEN, looks on.

YOUNG HUGH JACKMAN

Father!  I had a terrible nightmare!  I was hosting the Oscars, and I was part of this incredibly embarrassing musical number and--

PETER O'BRIEN

Shh, it's alright son.  You're safe now, back in Canada in 1845.

YOUNG HUGH JACKMAN

Wait, what?  Canada wasn't even a country until 1867.  Has Hollywood managed to not discover Wikipedia yet?

Suddenly, there is a RUCKUS downstairs.

PETER O'BRIEN

It sounds like your brother's biological father is downstairs.  I'll be back in a minute, barring some tragic death that you'd expect to shape the very hairy man you will become but won't.

He goes downstairs and is SHOT.  YOUNG HUGH, who suddenly doesn't seem to be bedridden with illness, runs downstairs.  Seeing PETER dead, his knuckles get an ERECTION and he stabs YOUNG LIEV SCHREIBER'S father, AARON JEFFERY.

AARON JEFFERY

He wasn't your father.  I was.  You'll have awesome mutton chops.

(dies)

YOUNG HUGH JACKMAN

I'm so confused, who the hell is related to whom then?

YOUNG LIEV SCHREIBER

The only thing I know for certain is that mom's a slut.

YOUNG HUGH JACKMAN

Well, the women in the audience didn't come to see some pale kid in a robe.  We should go ahead and skip to shirtless adulthood.

YOUNG LIEV SCHREIBER

Yeah, let's go fight for our country in war!

YOUNG HUGH JACKMAN

We're Canadian, buddy.

YOUNG LIEV SCHREIBER

Let's go fight for the United States in war for some reason!

HUGH and LIEV grow up and fight in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War.

Eventually LIEV tries to rape someone, but his squad tries to stop him at gunpoint.  Despite the fact that he knows bullets can't hurt LIEV, HUGH JACKMAN stops them and needlessly shows them his claws as well to move the story along.

They get a visit from DANNY HUSTON.

DANNY HUSTON

I heard you guys have some powers.

HUGH JACKMAN

Yes, I can heal myself and grow huge bone claws.

LIEV SCHREIBER

And I can heal myself and grow my fingernails out an inch or so.

DANNY HUSTON

Growing fingernails?  Wasn't that Meg Griffin's power in an episode of Family Guy?

LIEV SCHREIBER

I also can grow slightly less stupid-looking facial hair than Hugh.

DANNY HUSTON

I'd like you both to join my mutant team, it's mostly made up of actors who were written off of Lost.

HUGH JACKMAN

I'll join your team without any apparent surprise at the existence of other mutants.

HUGH and LIEV join DANNY'S TEAM: KEVIN DURAND, DOMINIC MONAGHAN, DANIEL HENNEY, WILL.I.AM, and RYAN REYNOLDS.

DANIEL HENNEY

I'm Daniel, I have really good aim with guns that already have scopes on them.

WILL.I.AM

I have a combination of Nightcrawler's power and the power to make any credits sequence look stupid using only my name.

DOMINIC MONAGHAN

I have the power to control electrical objects.  When the plot requires it, I can also control mechanical objects.  Hold on while I land this plane.

KEVIN DURAND

I have indestructible skin and eventually I turn into a huge fat guy named The Blob after I go on my all-Arby's diet.  Despite my skin power, I got a tattoo that has no relevance to the plot and only serves to make it more difficult to understand what my power is.

RYAN REYNOLDS

I'm good with swords.  I also have the power to take completely unfunny lines and deliver them so sarcastically that the audience thinks they're jokes.

LIEV SCHREIBER

You look familiar.  Aren't you Blade's buddy?  Shouldn't there be a rule against an actor playing two different characters from the Marvel universe?  Unless you're Rebecca Romijn and you're nude and painted blue for one of them, obviously.

HUGH JACKMAN

So let's see, the leftover Marvel comics characters we got for this movie are a guy with extremely good aim, someone who uses various sharp metal weapons, and a ridiculously fat guy.  Did I walk onto the set for Daredevil?

They all break into a building to steal some METEORITE while LIEV SCHREIBER is wire-lifted into the roof of the building to apparently do absolutely nothing.

They kill twenty or so people, but when they kill the twenty-first person HUGH protests.

HUGH JACKMAN

That's enough!  I didn't sign up for this.

DANNY HUSTON

What exactly did you think you were signing up for?

HUGH JACKMAN

I'm not sure, but you guys are so boring that it's making me miss Halle Berry and that's downright criminal.  I'm out of here.

HUGH leaves to go be a lumberjack in CANADA, eh.

EXT. CANADA - 6 YEARS LATER

HUGH leaves his house at the top of a mountain and starts his four-hour commute to work.  After his girlfriend, LYNN COLLINS, cuts his dick off and feeds it to him in front of his workmates, he gets a visit from DANNY HUSTON.

DANNY HUSTON

Someone is going around killing our old team members.  Dominic Monaghan is dead.

HUGH JACKMAN

How entirely unlike Watchmen.

DANNY HUSTON

An autopsy revealed he was extremely disinterested when he was killed, which makes me think it must have been Liev Schreiber.

HUGH JACKMAN

Somehow, it doesn't even occur to me that my girlfriend may be in danger.  Go away.

LIEV kills LYNN COLLINS, sending HUGH into a HAIRY RAGE.  He tracks down LIEV and they FIGHT.

LIEV SCHREIBER

Person who fights with the poorest wirework wins!

LIEV beats HUGH by dropping a bunch of LOGS THAT DON'T OBEY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS on him.

DANNY HUSTON

Alright, people have had enough of this mysterious background nonsense.  Let's get you some metal claws so we can have another fight scene.

HUGH JACKMAN

Then why did we even bother making a prequel?  Didn't we learn enough about how I got the metal claws in the second X-Men movie?

DANNY HUSTON

It wasn't quite covered in unnecessary excruciating detail.  That's really the point of this movie, if you couldn't tell by the excruciatingly detailed title, which helpfully lets audience members know that this isn't a movie about just anyone named Wolverine, but specifically the one from X-Men.

HUGH JACKMAN

At least it's better than the draft title, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Guy With The Claws That's In The Other Three X-Men Movies But This One Happens Before Those.

HUGH has his skeleton coated in METAL, which also coincidentally shapes his ROUND BONE CLAWS into nice sharp blades.

DANNY HUSTON

It worked!  Alright, now that he can't be defeated and there's no way whatsoever for us to control him, let's kill him.

This FAILS.  HUGH jumps out of his WATER TANK and escapes after apparently taking the time to completely dry himself and his hair.  He hides out on JONATHAN AND MARTHA KENT'S FARM.

EXT. SOME FARM - STILL IN CANADA I GUESS

JONATHAN KENT finds HUGH in his BARN, naked.

JONATHAN KENT

Rather than call the police, I'm going to invite you into my house.  That's how we roll in Canada.

HUGH goes to the bathroom and stares at his claws a bit.

HUGH JACKMAN

I can't believe this.

JONATHAN KENT

What, that you survived having your skeleton coated in indestructible metal?

HUGH JACKMAN

No, that my computer-generated claws somehow look even less real in this movie than they did in a movie that came out nine fucking years ago.

JONATHAN KENT

No kidding.  This hardly looks any better than the leaked workprint.

(pause)

Errrrr, uh, so I've heard!

(pause)

Please don't fire me, Fox!

JONATHAN is SHOT by DANIEL HENNEY.

HUGH JACKMAN

No! I can't believe the ultra powerful government agency that tracked me to the remote Canadian Rockies was able to track me to this farm!

JONATHAN KENT

I want you to take this leather jacket and motorcycle.  They used to belong to my son, but what's that asshole ever done for me besides not attract a mutant assassin to my home to murder me and my wife?

(dies)

HUGH JACKMAN

At long last, the secret behind some leather jacket is finally revealed! Now that's what I call an origin story!

HUGH launches himself at DANIEL'S HELICOPTER, DIE HARD STYLE, and cuts through the helicopter like WARM BUTTER.  The HELICOPTER crashes.

DANIEL HENNEY

You can't kill me, Hugh.  You hate me, so you wouldn't be able to kneel next to my dead body and scream into the sky as the camera zooms out above you.

HUGH JACKMAN

That's true, but I could ignite your helicopter fuel and walk away in slow motion as it explodes behind me.

DANIEL HENNEY

Damn, an even more overused cliche. Touche, Hugh.

HUGH does this, then apparently rides his motorcycle 1,200 miles to LAS VEGAS in a day.

INT. GYMNASIUM - LAS VEGAS

HUGH finds WILL.I.AM and KEVIN DURAND WEARING THE FAT BASTARD MAKEUP.

HUGH JACKMAN

Holy crap Kevin, what that hell have you done for the last 6 years?

KEVIN DURAND

Well I starred in my own spin-off: Glutty Professor 2: The Blobs.

WIL.I.AM

Are you looking for Liev?  Because he and Danny work together on some island, rounding up mutants to build some kind of supermutant.  That's why he wanted to experiment on you: to get your super-healing DNA.

HUGH JACKMAN

Why did he bother actually giving me the adamantium, then?

WILL.I.AM

Dude, just give up on trying to get this movie to make sense and go have another CGI fight scene.

KEVIN DURAND

If you want to find the island, you need to visit this guy that escaped named Taylor Kitsch.  They call him Gambit since that's the only X-Men character anyone gives a shit about who hasn't been in a movie yet.

HUGH JACKMAN

What better way could you treat a well-loved X-Men character than with an awkward, pointless cameo?

HUGH hops on his motorcycle and rides 1,700 miles to NEW ORLEANS.

INT. BAR - NEW ORLEANS

HUGH finds TAYLOR KITSCH playing POKER and making cards float around in the air, because other poker players just love it when their opponents display superhuman abilities with cards.

HUGH JACKMAN

Are you Geeymmbit?

(coughs)

Sorry, kangaroo in my throat. Gambit.

TAYLOR KITSCH

Depends, am I going to have to star in my own X-Men Origins movie if I am?

HUGH JACKMAN

I doubt it, your performance will probably kill any chances of that happening.

TAYLOR KITSCH

Then yes.  How can I help you awkwardly force the plot forward?

HUGH JACKMAN

I need you to get me back to the island where Liev Schreiber is hiding.  I want to kill him.

Suddenly, LIEV shows up and fights HUGH.  TAYLOR, oblivious to the fact that HUGH is about to kill his nemesis, does nothing but get in HUGH'S way.

HUGH knocks TAYLOR out, which apparently teleports him to the top of a nearby roof so he jumps down and stops HUGH again.  LIEV gets away.

HUGH JACKMAN

Seriously?  One of the coolest X-Men of all time and your role in the movie is just to get in the titular character's way like a bumbling sidekick?

TAYLOR KITSCH

How about I make it up to you by flying you 1,150 miles to Liev's hideout on Three Mile Island on my prop plane?

HUGH JACKMAN

My magic motorcycle could probably get me there in under 6 minutes, but fine.

They fly to THREE MILE ISLAND, where LIEV and DANNY have imprisoned all of the X-MEN CHARACTERS that haven't been in a movie yet.

INT. POWER PLANT - THREE MILE ISLAND

HUGH frees a bunch of kids, including a YOUNG JAMES MARSDEN.

YOUNG JAMES MARSDEN

Thanks for freeing me, faceless stranger.  I wish I could see you, but I have to wear a blindfold since I don't have the optic-blast-blocking sunglasses that I somehow managed to find or make or something.

HUGH JACKMAN

Great.  Well, make sure you don't listen to any of your new friends when they tell you about the super-hairy guy with metal claws that freed you, otherwise the first X-Men movie won't even make as much sense as this piece of shit.

HUGH JACKMAN finds DANNY HUSTON building a new SUPERMUTANT, SILENT RYAN REYNOLDS.

DANNY HUSTON

Hello Hugh.  As you can see, I've sealed Ryan Reynolds's mouth shut.

HUGH JACKMAN

You took a character nicknamed "The Merc with a Mouth" and sealed said mouth shut?  That's like making a Spiderman movie where he can't shoot web. Or a Fantastic Four movie that doesn't suck.

DANNY HUSTON

Just hold on a second while I type "Decapitate" into the application that controls Ryan.  I have to type everything because we spent all our money on adamantium and couldn't afford Visual Basic licenses.

RYAN REYNOLDS

Decapitate: Permission Denied.

DANNY HUSTON

Ack!  Sudo decapitate.

RYAN REYNOLDS

Huston is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.

DANNY HUSTON

Fuck me, su root && decapitate!

RYAN pushes ADAMANTIUM KATANAS out of his arms to fight HUGH while saying nothing, his lips sealed shut in a way that somehow prevents his new healing ability from repairing them.

HUGH JACKMAN

Fucking Deadpool has fucking retractable katanas?  How does that even work, they're twice as long as his arms?!

RYAN kicks HUGH'S ASS, so LIEV rescues him.

LIEV SCHREIBER

Nobody kills you but me, brother.

HUGH JACKMAN

Is that line really all we're going to do to justify the two of us working together?  It's kind of disturbing to think of a screenwriter actually writing that line and then moving on.

HUGH and LIEV fight RYAN.  RYAN unleashes OPTIC BLASTS against LIEV, because apparently he has those too and he has better control over them than the mutant whose DNA he used.

LIEV SCHREIBER

Arrgghh! Somehow your optic blasts don't even burn my clothing!

HUGH JACKMAN

It's a good thing the audience doesn't know we both survive because of first X-Men movie, otherwise this scene would be utterly lacking any suspense!

While RYAN is distracted, HUGH slices his head off and pushes him into a COOLING TOWER.

The SILENT VILLIAN that wields DOUBLE BLADES falls down a large open SHAFT, his body SPLITTING as it falls.

HUGH JACKMAN

Awesome.  We've managed to rip off the worst of the Star Wars movies now.  Are we done yet or are there any more cool X-Men characters this movie wants to ruin?

DANNY shows up with a gun loaded with ADAMANTIUM BULLETS.

HUGH JACKMAN

Adamantium bullets?  Maybe you should try an adamantium stake through the heart or adamantium garlic while you're at it.

DANNY HUSTON

My understanding is also that you can't see your own reflection in an adamantium mirror.

DANNY shoots HUGH in the head.

HUGH JACKMAN

Oh no, I can't remember anything!

DANNY HUSTON

Because shooting you in the head destroyed your memories?

HUGH JACKMAN

No, because this is the most unmemorable comic book movie since Catwoman.  Who am I?  Where am I?  What year is it?

DANNY HUSTON

Well, it's 1979, not that the costuming or set decoration give you any indication that's the case.  Here, have some 2009-era currency.

THE CAMERA zooms into the sky, providing a bird's eye view of an island that goes out of its way not to actually look like THREE MILE ISLAND.

X-MEN ORIGINS: THAT GUY THAT CAN MAKE LIGHT BULBS TURN ON WITH HIS MIND is rushed into production.

END

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